Ein prosit to Oktoberfest

I usually devote this blog to political discourse. But for a conservative, dealing with politics can be downright depressing these days. That's why God invented beer. It's not why the Germans invented Oktoberfest, though. But you sure can't fault their timing, at least from an American perspective. Any excuse to drink before this November election is a good one.

So the other night I headed to an Oktoberfest in my own version of the fatherland, Toms River. I attended the annual Oktoberfest at Basil T's, a brewpub/restaurant near the Ocean County Mall.

Jeff LinkousKurt Epps and me at the Oktoberfest. His jokes were so old that if I had Scotch the same age it would be the smoothest whisky in the world.

The beer goddesses in their dirndls, with beer god Kurt at left.

I don't know about you, but when I'm making up a list of things I want to do before I die, attending the Oktoberfest in Bavaria always makes the Top Five.

Actually in some ways, this may have been better than the real Oktoberfest. Instead of being crammed into drafty tents, we were seated at tables. Not only that, but the choice of beer was more extensive and the food was better.

At the real Oktoberfest, you're pretty much restricted to the one beer that is offered by the brewer that sponsors the tent in which you sit. But for this fest, brewer Dave Hoffman had come up with four beers, all of which were served from pitchers by a fetching array of waitresses wearing the customary dirndl - which is not just a funny-sounding word but an actual form of dress, the type you see on the blonde beer goddess on the St.Pauli Girl label.

The beers included a dunkel, which is a dark beer; a hefe-weizen, which is a wheat beer, a pumpkin porter; and of course an Oktoberfest.

As each was served, host Kurt Epps of the Pubscout website would lead the crowd in a chorus of "Ein Prosit," the entire lyrics of which consist of:

This is followed by an importation to drink: "Eins, zwei, drei g'suffa!"

And this in turn is followed by another such importation:

"Zicke, zacke, zicke, zacke!

To which the faithful are expected to respond:

"Hoi, hoi, hoi!"

Kurt was accompanied by the Firehouse Polka Band, a three-man combo that had the requisite oom-pah sound courtesy of a massive sousaphone or tuba or whatever you call that thing. Anyway it was loud.

There's no drinking song like a German drinking song. Also there's no gemutlichkeit quite like German gemutlichkeit. "Gemutlichkeit" is one of those words like "zeitgeist" and "schadenfreude" that have no direct equivalent in English. It means something like "fellow-feeling" and it describes the camaraderie that springs up amid a mass of beer-drinkers.

Meanwhile chef Steve Farley had cooked up some German food that included plates full of various sausages. I enjoyed them in the company of the two proprietors of Basil T's, Pete and Peter Gregorakis, the proprietors of Basil T's. How did two brothers both end up named Pete? It's Greek to me, and to them as well. In Greek, their names are different, but both come out as "Peter" in English.

By the way, the restaurant at Basil T's generally offers Italian food, so it's a real all-American place. Greek owners, German-quality beer and Italian food. The German fare was special for this event.

The sausages brought back memories of my one trip to Bavaria, which was not in October but in July. My oldest brother was in the army stationed at Augsburg and I stayed with him for a week or so. That was 34 years ago, but I can still recall the smell of the sausage that would be served with a steaming plate of sauerkraut and a mug of the local beer at tables next to the town square.

Every town had several small breweries and the beer was fresh and malty. This was an era when good locally brewed beer was impossible to find in America. The market was dominated by bland, bubbly swill from the mass marketers. Meanwhile in Germany even the local McDonald's served a great draft beer with your doppel-burger.

It is one of the great triumphs of American civilization that you can now enjoy that quality of beer here in New Jersey. In addition to brewing the beers at Basil T's, Dave runs the Climax brewery in Roselle Park. There, Dave brews some of the best beers in America. His brewery is in an old industrial building where by his father Kurt has had a machine shop for decades.

It was when we were discussing his dad that Dave mentioned the beerfest that would make a better destination for a traveling American, the Cannstatter Volksfest. It's being held as we speak in Stuttgart and Kurt, who was born near there, had flown back to the old country for the fest.

"It's just as big as the Oktoberfest in Munich but it's something a little less advertised than the Oktoberfest," Dave told me. "The Oktobersfest is millions of people and everyone gets out of hand and everything and the Cannstatter Volksfest that's more for the people in Germany who know about that. And the same breweries have the same big tents. It's almost identical to Oktoberfest except without all the mayhem, you know."

The way Dave describes it, these fests are something of endurance events.

"There's guys at Oktoberfest who will sit at the same table for two weeks. They will not move. Because if you move out of that spot you're not getting your spot back because there's so many people at Oktoberfest. They sleep right there. They pass out with their head on the table."

All things being equal, an Oktoberfest in Toms River had much to recommend it. I got to sleep in my own bed afterward.

By the way, if you want to try some of Dave's excellent beers, they remain on tap at Basil T's, which is on Hooper Avenue right next to the Ocean County Mall. I don't get there quite as often as I'd like, since I no longer live in my fatherland of Toms River, but I highly recommend the happy hour.

Also attending was Jeff Linkous, who took the photo that accompanies this and who is the esteemed author of the Beer-Stained Letter blog, which you might want to bookmark if you're a beer aficionado.